This place that I call home, as I now have lived here longer than any other place I have live, can be the best of places and the worst of places.
     Its moments when it's the best of places usually come when I am outside and out of town in the backcountry.  The small nature of our town; only 3 square miles, is that "out there" is only a hop, skip and  a jump away.  In a few minutes I can be deep in the mountains that surround Aspen, no signs of civilization for as far as I can see.   Or, in this case, the photo shows that the signs of man's passing are only the signs that he used to be here, but he is gone now, leaving his monuments and structures to moulder away back into the earth.

     Or, if I must be in town, I can sit on green grass outside a huge white tent that is housing hundreds of world class musicians playing the last refrains of a summer's worth of music. 
      Or, I can go listen to the Dali Lama speak in an intimate setting, or, watch the nominated Oscar films in a 100 year-old opera house sitting in real, honest to goodness purple upholstered seats.  Or, if I must, catch some unbelievable youngsters (everybody is a youngster to me, so get over it!) fly through the air on snowboards or skis and do tricks and flips that I didn't really think people could do, until I saw them do them!
     But probably the best thing about this place is, as Glen Fry said, all my friends are here.  A small tight group of people that I count as friends whether they be work friends or those outside of work that I see way too little of both.
     For a while, I thought about leaving this place.  Back in '98, a series of tragedies that seemed to never end thinned out my family to where I just wanted to sit down and give up.  That's when I thought I really had no more ties to this community until I realized that what had sustained me through those awful few years were the friends that I could count on my two battered hands had stood quietly by me.

     I'm lucky in that I grew up in a family of travelers.  
     Every summer,after school unleashed us 4 kids, we would all pile into a wonderfully decrepit station wagon and rumble off to places unknown.  We didn't know exactly where we were going, but we knew we were making good time!
     Dad and mom would split the driving up, making for 50% terror and 50% calm.  You figure it out.  But, we did, in fact, end up at Expo '67 in Montreal while it was still open, we arrived in the Black Hills, Yellowstone, the Amana Colonies and countless other funny little tourist traps.
     Consequently, I learned to Go With The Flow!  Don't let the rocks and logs scare you, flow around them like they didn't matter and let gravity take through the journey. 
     While I was wonderfully fooled into thinking we arrived at destinations, never considering the journey, I learned to laugh at where I later would break down on my old Harley-Davidson, relish in the sunsets and sunrises where I finally gave up trying to make the map match my location, later learning I had the wrong map!  HA!
     However, I am not a good traveler in that I only stop for gas when I have to pee, never before.  I am known for having a cast iron bladder, so beware!  And, I can drink coffee like the good bachelor Norwegian farmer I am.
     But, I like anything that is on the radio, including the All Polka Channel or the Clear Channel AM stations that only talk about aliens and abductions.  I like gas station food, I can see the humor in Country Western music, I have found that there is a rhythm to the road, just have to find it.  Finally, I will laugh at just about any joke you offer up!

As I cruise through my fifties, I allow for expansion in my life by buying those special blue pants with the elastic waist band and the balloon seat, thank-you very much!!

Then consider the briefest moments in a continuum. If even the briefest of moments did not have a beginning, middle, and end, it could not join with others.
-Dalai Lama

     Moments seem to be making up my life recently.  A rare glimpse of Farland as I drive down the highway, an image caught out of the corner of my eye of turkey vultures sitting on a fence high on a hill, their wings spread to the morning sun drying their feathers, chance encounters on the road while working seeing someone I haven't seen in some time, being in the right place at the right time and scoring some wonderful pasta and meatballs from my favorite restaurant and so on.  These moments seem to be making up my days and nights.
     While working the other day and training another rookie, we were in the area known as McLain Flats as it's a rare flat expanse here in the valley.  A rare truly working ranch is there where they grow hay that is "certified" as it's weed free.  Our weather has turned to more Colorado-like as of late with crystal clear mornings turning to growing clouds as the day warms up, then showers and thunderstorms in the late afternoon and early evening.
     I had spotted these freshly cut and baled rolls of hay out on Moore's ranch and loved the way they looked.  For all the world the appeared to be some giant's Shredded Wheat cereal he or she had flung from the bowl and scattered them out in the field. 

      But, with the gloomy storm clouds coming in there was no light to take a photograph that would show off this contrast in shapes and textures, so I just enjoyed the view as my rookie and I patrolled the roadway. 

     Then, no sooner had my wish left my mind than the tiniest of holes appeared in the clouds off to the west as the sun set!  A circle of sunshine no bigger than this field bathed everything in its light.  I could see the edge of the sunshine rapidly approaching, so it was slam the patrol car into Park, find my camera and leap out and over the fence.  Looking through the viewfinder I couldn't see all I wanted to see of the tableau. 
      The circle of sunlight was fast disappearing to my right. 
     I panned the camera back and forth, up and down but I wasn't seeing what I wanted.  Finally, I realized that there was going to be time for just a couple of shots.  I aimed at the sky with the hayfield just visible at the bottom of the frame and, "click", one shot taken.  Then I aimed at the field with sky barely visible and took the second shot.  I panned to my left and then the giant that had thrown their cereal out just turned off the light.  Gone.  Dark, moody and altogether gray again.  Two photos taken and the moment was gone.  I would later trust my computer and a steady hand to "glue" the two images into one.
     I finally had a moment to appreciate the wonderful story told by Ansel Adams' daughter about his famous photograph, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico.
     She recalled that they were all piled in the old car driving along at sunset when suddenly her father screeched to a stop and started yelling at them all to get the camera out, get the tripod, get some film!  The moon was just rising over the hills behind an old adobe church and the setting sun was just kissing the headstones in the cemetery lighting them up with the last rays.  Adams finally got set up, composed, set the aperture, shutter speed and took exactly one shot.  The light was then gone.  The moment past.
      He later recalled being tempted to return to the church at the same time to try to recapture that moment, but decided against it. 
     He worked the image in his darkroom where it was said that it was like a choreographed dance as he developed his images.  Burning here, dodging there, darkening this with that filter, brightening this with the other filter.  He would often have several filters in one hand, a black piece of cardboard in the other as he would coax the image out of the photo paper.
     And so, another moment in the myriad of moments that make up one's day, one's year, one's life.  I am slowly learning to appreciate such moments.  I have to slam the car to a stop, leap out uncaring what I look like, spin 360 degrees with arms outspread trying to take it all in at once as it is so fleeting.
     Yes, time speeds up as we get older, get used to it.  Sunsets happen every day, but for how many days?  
    

Walls, I have too many walls in my life, both literal, figurative and imaginative.
The walls that I place too much stuff inside of to be categorized, kept and collected, but very possibly not used.  Go figure.
The walls that I place around myself when it comes to my relationship with others.  Too many years of not trusting anyone (at work) can spill over into my personal life.  I was brutally confronted with this when my ever-patient therapist (shrink) was looking at a collection of my photos and she commented that there are almost no people in any of the photos, except for the twins.  In those photos, there are no adults.  Kind of like the Peanuts cartoon strip in which adults are only featured as faceless legs and unintelligible voices.
Hmmmm.
I also know that I place too many walls around what I think I can and cannot do.  I don't speak up when I should like Dawn did at a recent book signing where she chastised the so-called green author for his book not being printed on recycled paper.  I would have kept silent.  I didn't speak up when the so-called carpenters repairing my cube stomped all over my flowers and dug up others, not knowing that Russian sage is NOT a weed!  But I kept quiet, not wanting to rock the boat in public housing.  Our residency here is tentative at best, being able to be kicked out on a whim of the housing board and all.
And, I know that I dislike walls as I am not a city person.  I can do without looming buildings, walling us all in at the bottom of a concrete and glass canyon.  Visit, yes, live, not hardly.  I need space around me, space without limit except for sky and mountains.  Pick a season, and I am usually out and about.  Even when camping, I dislike having to sleep in a tent, preferring to plop down and gaze skyward for a truly unlimited view of the cosmos.
A treasured memory was sailing on Lake Superior one sultry summer and it was a hot one!   But, just a mile or so off-shore, the mighty Gitcheegumee would be as cool as an early spring morning, the heat left far behind.  Sleeping on the deck on a moonless, cloudless night is something everyone should experience.
There is a black dome overhead and water, water everywhere.  Flat, flat horizon lines in the magic hour just after sunset with purple skies reluctantly revealing her jewelery for the evening.  I think I forgot to blink for most of that evening, as there was so much to take in and try to comprehend.  A sense of size and place were implanted that evening, and the evenings to follow.
So, walls, I guess are what I could do without.  Without them, you could come and go as you please and I would do the same!

     Here is Dave's  very short answer to What Draws Us  Together with lots and lots of comments that is a must-read!

http://myworldpeace.gaia.com/blog/2008/7/what_draws_us_together

     While I tend to immediately think along the lines of Dave and Susan and Crayons pop into my whirligig mind.  So, down to the shoreline rocks I go and draw my favorite lighthouse on the big egg-shaped rock there.
     Other times I think what usually draws us together is times of sadness or adversity, but what can really create the ties that bind are the times when we don't think we really are being drawn together; those wonderful times of random joy shared together.
     "Do you remember when.....?" is what will start those memories flowing again as laughter spills onto the weathered grey planks of the porch as we all instantly are transported back to That Time again and we will feel that special togetherness we share.
     In the meantime, I will draw us all together with my duct taped, 64 count, sharpener on the side box of Crayons.
     "Does anyone have any extra Blue Sky Joy?"

     Today is my whole one day off is a row, and it's crummy, weather wise.  So, I decided that what I was going to next (after visiting the Church of The Blessed Bean and The Mystic Blue Chrysler) as to tackle this week's homework in Photoshop.
      It was to make a photograph, without using any photographs.....  I know, I know, how does one do that?
     So, it had to be created using all drawing tools in PS.  Anyone that knows me also knows that I can't draw, or, I can, as long as it's a straight line and I get to use a ruler.
     The trick in today's piece was to make it look like a photograph.  The Ipod commercials were the basis and "drawing with light" was the premise.  Miss Dawn had also done some "painting with light"  photos a while back using flashlights and whatnots, so I tried to emulate that effect without actually dragging out my flashlight or camera.
     It went OK and even my harshest critic, me, was fairly pleased with the rather abstract result.  Another trip into space as things here are too hectic for me, so there is some respite for me in imagining that I am peering out the window of some scene out of a sci-fi movie.
     I am first and foremost a landscape photographer, but I am sure that these radical departures are good for me, right?

     On a work note, the Fourth went by without any major incidents or occurrences.  The usual Amateurs Night Out, a lot like New Years, but for the most part, nothing to report.  Good.
     I am a bit of an empty vessel as of late, so I have been looking for ways to refill myself.  Work isn't doing it right now, dreams of the Cape or the Midwest are.  Go figure.
     Tried to contact the remnants of my family in Wisconsin, but they must have all gone up to my brother's little cabin in the north country.  Good for them!
     I am going to nurse a bum ankle tonight, not leave my hovel and not turn on the Idiot Box either.
     I am anxiously awaiting my Rufus Wainwright CD's that I ordered the other day as well.  Curse you, Amazon One-Click Shopping!
     For one reason or another, his latest work, Release the Stars, has struck a chord in me, especially the first track; "Do I Disapoint You?".  Very powerful lyrics on levels that keep opening up to me.  From the personal to the cosmic.  Hmmmm.
     More on that once the CD arrives.

Self-pity

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself. DH Lawrence

     "You're doing great, a little deeper on the compressions and a little faster."  I hear my voice and I'm glad I sound calm. The scared, confused and near tears young man is kneeling next to his friend and I am trying to take it all in as fast as I can and as completely as I can.  Deadly cold swift water is lapping at my toes as I kneel down dropping gear all around me.
     "I'm going to need an airway, ambo-bag, defib, IO kit and the drug kit," is my mental mantra as I repeat it over and over so that when I climb back up the steep rocks to my truck I will remember.  I try to not look at the many pairs of eyes that are looking at me.  I know what those eyes are saying, and they are wrong.
     I appear to them as if an angel, come to pluck their friend's very life and soul back from the abyss.  It is a look I have seen before, so I try not to look back.

      The Devil's Punchbowl, or just the Punchbowl is about 8 miles east of town up in the very mountains innards.  The river has carved a round bowl out of solid granite as testament and witness to its power.  Not even rock itself can resist it.  It has been a lure for picnickers and daredevils since man first viewed it.  A siren call to leap in and feel its power for a moment, then swim out to a small rock ramp that leads back to the top for a return leap.
      How many have stood at the precipice and paused, goaded on by taunts and dares to make the leap into space is myriad.  Now, there is one less.
     I connect the defibrillator and the gallery whispers that I am going to shock their friend back to life, back to their side to laugh alongside them and recount how scary those long, long minutes were as he lay lifeless.  But, before I even see the monitors black face, the long green line laying flat on the bottom, I know that there will be no electricity coursing through the young man's body to restore his fibrillating heart back to a life giving rhythm.  But, I go through the motions anyway.
      Now it's my turn at compressing the heart muscle.  2 more paramedics have joined me along with firefighters and search and rescue personnel.  They are clanking and clomping away setting up hauling systems to eventually pull this form back to the waiting road.
      I stare up from my hands and lock eyes with another.  He sees in my eyes that what needs to happen is either going to happen in the next few minutes, or, if not, we will keep fighting to keep this young person's soul on this side of the eastern door for as long as we can.
     "30 and 2," is my new mantra as the first of 4 rounds of drug therapy are pumped into the shin bone through the IO port that has been drilled in. 
     Watching my hands, rocking back and forth, counting aloud to time the oxygen forced through his throat, I can feel his lungs fill, then fall back.
      I wonder if his mother is feeling something right now, this moment.  If she is far away, near or even in his life at this time.  Does she feel it just as she did 22 years ago when she "knew" she was carrying him?
     Does he have a sister, brother, lover?  Is that her staring at me so hard I can feel her eyes on the back of my skull when I switch sides to take over breathing for him.  I give another breath as the count hits 30.
     "We are going to do 1 more round of drug therapy, then package him and start the uphaul."  A slight tightening of breath is almost audible, but more felt as the finality of this pronouncement is made.  More atropine, more adrenaline, more of everything is poured through a syringe into the small port that no longer weeps blood.
     It's my turn again at compressions.  I am no longer surprised at the physical effort it takes to compress some one's chest 100 times a minute.  Sweat pours off of me as I am still in full uniform, gun belt, bullet proof vest and the rest.  The sweat drops land on his chest and neck as I rock to the inner pulse I feel in my mind almost chant-like.  He stares up at me as his head lolls to one side at my efforts.
     A raven squawks as it lands high in the spruce tree and looks down on us all.  The forest service ranger at my side would quickly tell us all that ravens are attracted to people as that usually means there will be scraps of food to be had.  My brother of the Mic Mac nation will tell you just as quickly that Raven is also charged with carrying souls east, through the door.
     I try to find a place to go in my mind to shut out the one thing that is final and real.  I find solace in reading the t-shirt of the person across from me.
     But, my mind being what it is wonders again if his mother is cursing me as I kneel there in the icy cold water, thankful that my knees have gone numb so I can no longer feel them.  I think that this wouldn't be such a bad thing for my thinking mind as well; numbness.
     Now is his mother feeling an icy grip on her heart?  Has her womb trembled as it loses the ultimate connection to him?
     The ropes are now strung, the carabiners connected and ready hands are waiting.  The backboard is positioned, his hands taped together to prevent them from getting tangled.
     But, now the frantic efforts have calmed a bit, smoothed out and we are ever so tender as he load him onto the litter for the steep ride.  A stop half way  for another 100 compressions.  There was the briefest hesitation by my brothers and sisters when this command went out as no one wishes to be the last one to try.  I bend over and count by 30's as I resume my rocking and compressing.  Much like a prayer in front of an icon it goes.

     The ambulance screams away with its cargo.  The crowd thins, names are collected along with phone numbers of family.  I volunteer to gather the last of the gear and do a sweep, picking up the detritus of the occasion.  I need a place to go for a bit, be alone, listen only to the water rushing by in its headlong obedience to gravity.
     My radio crackles to life and I hear that it has been "called". 
     I look up in time to see Raven take flight.